U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is claiming 40,000 Brazilians are “headed for Connecticut wearing designer clothes and Gucci bags.” The U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) regularly releases statements on its work and has said nothing about “40,000 Brazilians.”

Graham last year was photographed, smiling, with a leader of the white nationalist group, the Proud Boys, apparently dining at a restaurant. One year earlier Graham appeared in a photo with far right wing politician Geert Wilders, “a controversial Dutch parliamentary leader with anti-Islam and anti-immigrant views.”

And just months ago according to a pro-immigration group Graham appeared on Fox News “using talking points peddled by white nationalists.”

In August U.S. Customs and Border Patrol issued a statement saying its San Diego agents “have encountered an unprecedented number of Brazilian nationals,” putting that number at “more than 7,300 Brazilian nationals,” a far cry from 40,000.

There was no mention of “designer clothes and Gucci bags.”

Watch Senator Graham:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) bizarrely claims 40,000 Brazilians heading for Connecticut “wearing designer clothes and Gucci bags” illegally crossed the border: “This is not economic migration anymore.” pic.twitter.com/SYg0cWWJHc

— The Recount (@therecount) October 13, 2021

He was quickly mocked for his claims:

Let me get this straight…..40,000 Brazilians walked 6,000 miles from Brazil to Yuma wearing designer clothes and carrying Gucci bags (unknown if real or knockoffs) and are planning to go another 2,700 miles to the land of Vineyard Vines called Connecticut. 🤪

— Oliver Kite Fan (@flyfishingVol) October 13, 2021

Narrator: This did not happen. This is not happening. This will not happen in the future.

— Reese (@JackJackington) October 13, 2021

So we don’t want poor people from Mexico coming but we also don’t want rich people from South America coming? @LindseyGrahamSC just say that you don’t want any person of color coming into the US.

— Nola (@NolaLegalmvp) October 13, 2021

Embattled House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy went all-in for QAnon Thursday in his wide-ranging, rambling conspiracy theory-laden press conference in which he called the January 6 insurrection an “altercation” but referred to the Black Lives Matter protests as “riots.”

Standing at a podium with a sign declaring “Country in Crisis,” McCarthy attacked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, blaming her for the lack of Capitol Police on January 6 and the mask mandate.

“If you are vaccinated and you get the variant, there’s .003% you’d go to the hospital,” McCarthy said – not as a means to urge vaccination, but as a means to oppose the House mask mandate. (NCRM has not verified that claim.)

“There’s a greater chance you’d got hit by lighting,” McCarthy said. He then took a long pause, and then declared, “But for some reason, Pelosi thinks the storm is coming.”

That phrase, “the storm is coming,” is widely documented as one used by delivers in the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory movement.

If I was Kevin McCarthy I would simply not use QAnon dogwhistles during press conferences pic.twitter.com/pnhopk4s7t

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 29, 2021

“We’ve watched Speaker Pelosi politicize medicine. Just as she’s doing right now,” he said of the mask mandate which is based on new CDC guidance. “We’ve watched the Sergeant of Arms have to pass a note to the Speaker during the altercations on January 6 of whether to call the National Guard.”

“We’ve watched Speaker Pelosi say during the riots of the summer, the disgust she had seeing the National Guard protecting the Lincoln Memorial. So yes, It’s fundamentally different.”

Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday argued that former Vice President Joe Biden should have solved racial tensions when there was an African-American president.

At a campaign event in Pennsylvania, the president’s son responded after a member of the audience called Biden a “racist.”

“Well, he is,” Trump agreed. “He was best friends with every segregationist ever to walk the halls of Congress.”

“But he’s going to fix those issues now, right?” he added sarcastically. “Now he’s going to fix racial tensions in America. Why did you wait 47 years, Joe? You know, if you really cared, if you thought it was something you were going to campaign on, maybe you would have utilized, I don’t know, your 38 years in the United States Senate.”

Trump added: “How about if you really wanted to do something about the issue — because this is what I would have done. Now, I have a brain but maybe it’s different. But if I really cared about the issue I would have maybe utilized my eight years as vice president to the first African-American president.”

Watch the video below.